Fresno State Gets Mysterious Donation

Fresno State has just received the largest pledged donation in its history, $10 million dollars for the athletic department. Exactly how this pledge will be honored still seems shrouded in mystery.

The money is coming through a former Fresno State football player, Alphonso Bigelow, who played linebacker in the mid-90s. He got his MBA at Fresno State, and still lives in the city. He is also the CEO of a company called Nykel Bam International, LLC. That's where the mystery comes in, because what the company does seems purposefully vague.

Roughly, Bigelow says the company is involved in brokering private commodities transactions. Emphasis, apparently on the private since the company does not maintain any public Internet presence. According to Bigelow, while he decided on where to give the money, the company's board of directors decided the amount.

He says the board of directors came to him this year and said they needed to give away $10 million for tax purposes. He could choose to whom. Bigelow says that he and all the board members have a goal to someday give away 80 percent of Nykel Bam's earnings.

So in the largest recession in decades, there is a privately held company that no one really knows about that had to give away $10 million dollars for tax reasons?

Frankly the story being told sounds like something from a comic book or a cheap conspiracy flick.

So here's the story: A few years ago, Bigelow owned local group homes. He had a master's degree in business from Fresno State, so he was trying to do some brokering on the side. He flew to Hong Kong to try to complete a gold transaction, but couldn't get it done.

While at a cocktail party in Hong Kong, he started talking to an elderly man from London, who took a liking to him and started mentoring him on the ways of international brokering.

Bigelow did not tell this story at the news conference Tuesday, partly because he wants to keep his business and the details of how he makes money as private as possible. ("I don't need more competition," he says.) And, frankly, it would have been too much to explain. Maybe too much to believe.

The unnamed man from London got him started, introduced him to the people who are now the board of directors for Nykel Bam LLC.

Let's see. A mysterious, elderly Englishman takes the young, handsome, charismatic ex-jock under his wing to learn the mystic ways of private international brokering. Then set him up and introduced him to other individuals that ultimately became the unknown, unnamed board of directors for the new, private company with the young man as the public face. All the while, the company is virtually invisible with no internet presence or public awareness until this sudden gift.

What are they? A front for AIM? Hydra? An ancient order of commodites trading vampires? H.I.V.E.? SPECTRE? I think Dan Brown has the shadow organization for his next book.